Opinion: Why Romney's Defeat Could Help the GOP

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I know that defeating the Kenyan Muslim Socialist occupying the White House is America’s last chance to preserve its freedom and prevent our country from becoming a bankrupt Eurocommunist welfare state.

But other than that, an Obama victory might not be a bad thing for the Republican Party.

Republicans, I know you don’t like Mitt Romney. You’re not planning to vote for him, you’re planning to vote against Obama. And you’re right not to like Romney. Because he will do nothing to advance the cause of conservatism, or of the Republican Party.

First of all, Romney is not a conservative. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed bills banning assault weapons and requiring every resident of the commonwealth to carry health insurance. Second of all, he’s practically a caricature of the image the GOP needs to shed if it’s going to compete in multicultural, 21st Century America. He’s a 65-year-old, white, wealthy country club Republican. No offense to 65-year-old white, wealthy country club Republicans, but you’re no longer America’s defining demographic.

Romney’s election will delay for at least four years the emergence of a candidate who can help the Republicans compete among blacks and Latinos. There are several candidates primed to run for president in 2016 who are both conservative and ethnic. Here’s the Washington Post, in an article about Texas’s Tea Party candidate, Ted Cruz:

Cruz, a Cuban-American, joins Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Govs. Bobby Jindal (La.), Susana Martinez (N.M.), Nikki Haley (S.C.) and Brian Sandoval (Nev.), as well as South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott as non-white Republicans — Cruz, Rubio, Sandoval and Martinez are Hispanic, Jindal and Haley are Indian-American, and Scott is black — that are nearly certain to run for national office, serve on a national ticket or be mentioned for a national ticket at some point in the not-too-distant future.

There are much more exciting, much more conservative candidates waiting right behind Romney. If he wins, their future will become more distant -- 2020, at the earliest. Maybe 2028, if a two-term Romney is succeeded by a two-term Democrat.

The other argument is that presidents almost never pass innovative legislation in their second terms. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal stalled after 1937. The Affordable Care Act, which was ratified by the Supreme Court this year, is as far in the direction of socialism as Obama will be able to take this country. He faces a Republican House which won’t pass any more of his welfare schemes. Republicans have dreams of overturning Obamacare, but that will happen only if they hold the presidency, the House of Representatives, AND a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Which won’t happen.

In 2016, the best the Democrats will have to offer are boring retreads such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. America will be dying to elect a Republican -- and it’ll be a much better Republican than Romney.

Buy this book! Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland's book, Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President , is available Amazon. Young Mr. Obama includes reporting on President Obama's earliest days in the Windy City, covering how a presumptuous young man transformed himself into presidential material. Buy it now!